The Hunger Artists
by Alice Wednesday
Summary: When you're trapped in a world where small is never small enough, can you break out? Or will it destroy you? Warning anorexia, could be triggering.


"_You begin to forget what it means to live. You forget things. You forget that you used to feel all right. You forget what it means to feel all right because you feel like shit all of the time, and you can´t remember what it was like before._" - Wasted, Marya Hornbacher.

"_It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength._" - Wasted, Marya Hornbacher.

* * *

The café is loud, boisterous. People talk and laugh and have fun, act like they give a damn about their companions. I stare at my bacon and scrambled eggs, they look like gunge and splintered bark. My appetite is gone. Was it ever there? The people get a little too loud for my liking, I brush it off.

The rag doll watches me with large gray eyes. She blinks.

One.

Two.

Three.

It's not in a coquettish manner, she would never do something so disgustingly feminine. Our relationship isn't one of lust. Her gaze moves to her coffee, black, she stirs it round and round and round. It makes me sick.

"Stop it" she ignores me. She takes a sip, one big sip. Then glances up at me, teasingly.

"It helps" she murmurs. I glance at the plate, elastic snaps. I look at her, pleadingly.

She glances at my meal, disgusted?

Her coffee is left unfinished.

The tomato sauce is like a trail of gooey blood. The noise in the café recedes, as we show our bones to the world.

* * *

At dawn time I watch her stand on the alter beside the God. She doesn't smile, she doesn't despair. She nods, onetwothreefour. She walks out of the bathroom and smiles at me. It doesn't reach her eyes.

Little ropes, green and pink, wind their way around our frames. Less it being used. It is still not enough. Alice doesn't mind this though, leeway is in order. Tonight we dine on (empty) plates, drink ice rivers, tonight we feel full. Tonight I am three hundred and fifty eight, tonight I am disgusting. My rag doll kisses my head in sympathy. I don't know when I got so weak.

* * *

The café is noisy again, almost screaming and almost yelling. I try to hide in the corner. I watch as slime and sludge are shoved into black holes. It makes my stomach burn. Coffee (black, 0) is poured into the pure vacuum. I leave the café as quickly as I can, Alice isn't here, she decided to disappear.

I walk deserts, drink oceans and eat the air. I run mountains, then I repeat.

Today I am minus seven hundred.

Today I am almost-strong.

* * *

We lie together, and we _lie _together. In the dark, bone meets bone, meets tears, meets unspoken fear.

Some nights we lie like this, counting the minutes until morning, counting breathes, and conversations, and uneaten calories. Other nights we knit, or watch films, or play games.

Stay activeactiveactive, because we've forgotten how to sleep.

In the dark I feel her concave stomach, and she shivers, and cringes but I don't let go. I tell her she's beautiful, and she disagrees, and I don't argue back anymore.

She tells me, as I stand to go to the bathroom, that my shoulder blades protrude - like angel wings. I smile because I know she's lying, she's just trying to make me feel better. She will always be thinner, stronger, can resist more, run faster. I will always be behind, dragging her down like the numbers on the scale.

As I go back to the bedroom I remember, I ate less than her today. For a minute I watch her sleeping, skeletal form from the doorway, and it isn't enough. I want to pick us up, and fly us away with my angel wings. For a minute I can… but lying in the cold dark is easier, and my wings are entombed in fat.

In the dark we count breathes, and beats, and lies, and uneaten calories.

Some nights we sleep.

* * *

Today she looks sad. Her lip is quivering, her clothes are crumpled. She looks like she's been caught in a tumble dryer then thrown into the grass to dry more. She tells me she's leaving, but she doesn't know for how long. She is scared. I tell her that we can leave this place, run away together, but she shakes her head. They have got to her. We are sick.

Ill.

Ugly.

Wrong_wrong_wrong! We aren't beautiful/floating/weightless - it's all lies.

_She _is lying.

I want to tell her that, and tell her that I need her. But the words stick to my throat and no sounds come out.

And she is leaving.

Her crumpled, tumble dryer dress sways in the wind, her messy hair gets increasingly tangled. And then she's gone.

I lie till my trousers are stained green and brown with grass and mud. I want to disappear too.

* * *

Lonely, I feel.

I feel lonely without her.

I don't feel empty though. An apple (71). A piece of toast (80). Oatmeal (126). This isn't empty. But it isn't full either.

It shuts Them up, while that Voice can scream Louder. I run faster. I imagine I'm like a train that's just been fuelled. Filled up up up. I can run _forever_. TheSpeedOfLight.

But the traffic light turns green, so I slow to a stop.

* * *

It's been a season, or two, but I still shiver in my socks. Animals wake up. Flowers - pretty - wake up. The world Wakes Up. I want to know when I can wake up. I haven't seen her since… Since I don't know. She's still alive though.

I think I can feel it.

And that's enough for me. Because the alternative is much much scarier.

People walk, talk, live, and I want to join them, I think. But I can't. Not yet. I'm not acceptable enough yet. I want to scream at these people, ask how they can live, breathe, exist, and not care, not think to care. But I don't. I am lost- fine, on target, on goal, on-

A horn screams red. These people yell at me, for me. And I decide to greet the pavement.

The world looks better sideways, I think.

* * *

She is there, when my eyes open, and my brain starts up again. I scan my main systems. Bed, drip, charts. Hospital. Automatically I feel for my bones. My skin coat is still laced quite tightly, but not tight enough. The Good Doctors must have loosened it a little. For a minute though none of this matters. She is here.

"I though you were dead," her face is pale, worried, less hollow. Her clothes - blue jumper, gray jeans - are tumble dryer crumpled, but dry. She is fatte- healthier, stronger.

"I'm still here," I whisper, smiling slightly that knowing smile, and her face frowns. I think They've got to her. She stands to get a better look. Yes, They've got to her.

"For how long?" she asks. Her arms encase me. She's always been the stronger of us. I think I tell her this, before I go back to sleep. I want her to carry us away from this. For a minute I can think she's strong enough to.

* * *

The theatre lights dim, the spotlight is on.

Their faces are painted, fixed, but their eyes are a swirling mass of colourful emotions. They're all here to watch the Floor Show. For Endless Nights They Come One and Come All. Come and see the puppet-boy be led on strings. See how he wants to break free, and see how he needs this. Come One and Come All! See his old self in the strings! And the rickety, skinny joints! See the hurt! See the pain! See him try to pretend he's okay!

Maybe at some point see an old friend... See him be led along, and for the finale he can lose control!

Clap when it's over, because it's only polite. Throw sandwiches, and coffees, and cake, and soup and everything and anything you know he won't touch. Try to get him to listen before he retreats off the stage again. Sit in silence when he does, try not to be worried. He is okay, he is always okay.

Until the curtains go down early one night. The puppet boy is thrown into a white box with flashing lights, because They don't want to show to end like this.

* * *

Another hospital. Only this one is a Circus. Clowns in white coats tell me things that aren't funny, and the ringmasters assistants run after me with clipboards and scales. I am an elephant, and they are throwing me peanuts, and jelly, and sausages with potato mash, chocolate bars, apples, pizza crusts and pancakes with cloying syrup. I want to unzip my skin and push all the food out, tie my skin tighter again. But the clowns won't let me. They say I will die. They say I have to play along, that The Show Must Go On. They tell me I want the show to go on, even if I don't realise it yet.

I just want Alice back. Alice and scales and ropes of green and pink that get smaller and smaller like the numbers.

They won't tell me where she is though.

So I will become a hunger artist, and run rings around them in my bone coat.

* * *

The world turns to browns, and reds, and oranges. Everything is dying, I am...

Then something snaps. Like a twig on a branch. Or a new stick of gum. This boy in the mirror might not be so big after all. Clothes hang off him, and living is an effort, and maybe, for once, at dinner he won't look down and see numbers. This bones-boy is tired, tired of not living, and tired of being scared to exist. This boy wants to exist. This boy might even want to live.

For dinner he eats fish fingers, and potatoes.

At dinner he clears his plate.

Dinner is more controlled than I thought it would be.

* * *

The world is white, sleeping, and I am Waking Up. My footsteps make tracks in the snow. I am _uncertain_- leaving the Circus. Being released back into the wild. The Clowns give solemn smiles, the assistants give shaky waves and hugs. The ringmaster unties my ropes this morning.

I am scared.

I am stronger.

Then my feet walk down vaguely familiar paths. Sometimes it gets dark and I can't see the winter sun through the trees. Sometimes I fear I am going the wrong way. I am getting colder. I feel alon-

I look up, keep walking, rarely stop, can't stop. I see a sign post ahead, I smile slightly and walk forward.

I am not that lost.

I might make it back in time to wake up with the rest of the world.

* * *

I laugh. It's loud and clear. It resonates. My hand links with hers, and her fingers lace through mine. Strong. We are strong. Beautiful. Ropes of pink and green no longer wind their way round our bodies. We don't need them. We exist.

We _live_.

Sometimes numbers jump out at us, like hags and demons. This time we fight back, with swords and bows and arrows. She is my strength, and I am hers.

We are healthy just now. Just now is really all that matters, I think.

Right now the world looks okay standing upright, and lying down. The sun shines.

Right now the world is beautiful lying on the grass, with my Alice next to me, in her tumble dried dress.

* * *

_I posted this on another author account I have, as an experiment, but then I just decided to re-post it here. I know this is really obscure even for Twilight fanfiction, but I couldn't help but write it with Alice and Jasper in mind. I apologise for grammar and spelling mistakes. Please tell me what you think. Also I'm aware recovery from ED's are never as straight forward as this depicts, but I just wanted a happy ending.  
_

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Twilght._  
**


End file.
